Gamay went to pay, and the plump young woman at the cash reg- ister greeted her with a friendly smile. “Passing through?” she said, as if she couldn't imagine any traveler staying in town longer than it took to fill a coffee cup.

Gamay nodded. “My husband and I are taking a drive along the coast.”

“Don't blame you for not staying,” the woman said with resigna- tion. “Not much to see around here.”

Despite her striking sophistication, Gamay's midwestern roots had given her a down-home earthiness that was hard to resist. “We think it's beautiful country,” she said, with an engaging smile. “We'd stay longer if we had time.” She opened the guidebook to the folded-over page. “It says here that there's a pretty little fishing harbor and a fish- processing plant nearby.”

“It does?” the cashier said with disbelief.

The other people in the room had been listening to every word. A spindly white-haired woman cackled like a hen. “Fishing ain't what it used to be. Plant sold out. Some big outfit bought the business. Fired all the folks working there. Nobody knows what they're doing. People who work there never come into town. Sometimes we see the Eskimos driving around in their big black trucks.”

Gamay glanced into the guidebook, looking for something she missed. “Did you say Eskimos•? I didn't think we were that far north.”

Her innocent question started a table debate. Some of the locals contended that Eskimos guarded the plant. Others said that the men driving the SUVs were Indians or maybe Mongolians. Gamay won- dered if she had stumbled into the local insane asylum, a thought that was reinforced when the cashier mumbled something about “aliens.” “Aliens?” Gamay said.

The cashier blinked through thick, round-framed glasses, her eyes growing wider. “It's like that secret UFO place in the States, Area Fifty-one, like they show on The X-Files.”

“I seen a UFO once when I was hunting near the old plant,” in- terjected a man who could have been a hundred years old. “Big sil- ver thing all lit up.”

“Hell, Joe,” said the skinny woman, “I've seen you so lit up you've probably seen purple elephants.”

“Yup,” the man said with a gap-toothed grin. “Seen them, too.” The restaurant filled with laughter.

Gamay smiled sweetly and said to the cashier, “We'd love to tell our friends back home that we saw a UFO base. Is it far from here?”

“Maybe twenty miles,” the cashier said. She gave Gamay directions to the plant. Gamay thanked the young woman, put a ten-dollar bill in the empty tip jar, scooped up the coffees and headed out the door.

Paul was leaning against the car, his arms folded across his chest. He took the coffee she offered him. “Any luck?”